Thoughts on Theonomy & Christian Engagement with Culture | Ligon Duncan

We're back with another episode of the Room for Nuance podcast.

I'm Sean with my guest Luke Duncan or as his friends call him, Dr. Duncan.

Brother, will you ask for the Lord's help as we get started?

Let's pray Heavenly Father Thank you for the privilege of having a conversation this way that not only involves

a couple of friends But can bring in hundreds of other friends into that conversation.

We pray that it would be glorifying to Christ that it would help build a church that it would encourage Pastors and

church leaders and that you would give us help in Jesus name.

Amen.

Amen.

We typically like to start the show just by asking people to share a three to five minute version of their testimony.

Would you mind doing that?

Sure.

Yeah, I grew up in a wonderful believing home.

My mother was a Southern Baptist from East, Tennessee.

Okay, who had done.

She she did her university work at the State Baptist College in Tennessee Carson Newman and

then eventually went to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to do a master's in church music and Then

doctoral work at Northwestern and then she had directed choirs in Baptist churches in North Carolina, Tennessee and

Georgia and Was called to be the music professor at Furman University.

And that's where she and my dad met they met on a blind date.

Dad came from a he was an eighth generation Southern Presbyterian ruling elder.

So I had a Southern Baptist mom and a and a and a Presbyterian dad and actually as a young child

I was taken back and forth from First Baptist in Greenville to Second Presbyterian in Greenville, but

eventually was reared under a really wonderful faithful Minister at

Second Prez a man named Gordon Reed who had a huge impact on my life.

I My mother was always my theological conversation partner and she was

wonderfully Theologically read and articulate and so when I had theological questions,

I typically talked with her.

I've been talking with mom about what faith is what repentance is what?

Regeneration is etc.

Probably from the time.

I was five or six years old when I was 10 what I actually did is I

we had a Communicants class at our church where the pastor would take Young people

10 11 12 13 14 years old through a gospel.

He would do a different gospel every year at the end of that time if they felt that they were ready to make a

public profession of faith.

They would be examined by the elders and then they would make a public profession of faith.

And I went through I think I studied the Gospel of Mark with him one year.

And at the end of that time, even though I had a number of friends in the class I really didn't feel like I was ready to make a public profession partly

because I knew that it would please my mom and dad and I knew that that was not a good reason to make a public profession, so I

didn't and That for that was that was maybe early fall of one year that next summer.

I always spent a Month in Titusville, Florida with my grandparents my my

mom's mom and dad and they were faithful Southern Baptist members at First Baptist in Mims, Florida

and that summer Billy Graham did a Evangelistic campaign in Orlando and

I listened to him preach all night for like all week for like five nights in person.

Yeah, not over the radio.

They would take we were not skipping a jump away from yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, so that Really had an impact on me just evangelistic

direct Preaching and the pastor of their church was a man named Joe right

Meyer who was a dear friend of Adrian Rogers.

Yeah, and and so I went to Pastor Joe and just asked him to talk with me about the

gospel and he walked me through The gospel and when I went back home at the end of the summer, I said

I want to do communicants class again with mr Reed because I think yeah that I'm ready to make a public profession.

So I did community we went through the gospel of John that time and at the end of that time I thought I'm

I understand this.

I understand the gospel and I'm ready to make a public.

I was 10 10 so That you know, and again the Lord put my

mom my dad my pastor, you know Godly grandparents a faithful pastor

in Mims, Florida all these things in my life helped me receive the Word of God.

One plants and other waters.

Yes, that's right.

The Lord gave the growth.

Yeah, and how did you a become reformed and be lamentably become Presbyterian?

I've told Mark.

You know what?

They really decide what I was digging.

I was digging through.

I was digging through some a box of memorabilia That has had probably been unsealed for

years and I discovered my baby dedication from first

Baptist Greenville, South Carolina.

And I said I sent a picture of it to Al and the mark, you know, and they did the tear

emoji back, you know.

Yeah, you were doing you were yeah.

Yeah, it's I Always

would have been inclined to being Soteriologically reformed.

Yeah, because of my conservative Evangelical Presbyterian upbringing and because mom frankly

mom knew more theology Than dad did.

Dad was a late.

He dad caught on to reading later in life.

Okay, and and and mom she was always a reader you

always a teacher always a professor and.

She had probably been reared under a moderately Calvinistic pastor in East, Tennessee.

Okay.

He quote which would have been more common for yes.

Spurgeon a lot.

You can't quote a lot of Spurgeon without getting the theology of grace.

Coming through and so so reformed soteriology was never an issue.

Okay, and so that was you know, that was that that was sort of a fountain.

For me.

I also I memorized the shorter catechism of the West Misery Confession, which is a beautiful

Reformed soteriology laid out in its presentation of the word.

I salute us and those sort of things.

But I didn't understand those things experientially and I my story is I struggled with

assurance from 10 to 14.

Partly because I was I was I was a confused Calvinist.

I was actually our minion in my theology of assurance and I heard a pastor preach

on Ephesians 1 at a youth conference and it dawned on me.

That before I had ever reached out in faith to God.

He had reached out in grace to me praise God for that youth pastor.

Amen for preaching through.

You know.

Yeah, and that was it was like the lights came on that now I if I if I had understood the catechism that I

had memorized I would have already run that but Experientially that wasn't a reality until I heard it from Ephesians 1.

Of course, that's how we all we want to get our stuff from the Bible.

You know as wonderful as our confessions and catechisms are.

I remember Sinclair Ferguson saying it makes all the difference in the world if you believe something because you read it in

Berkhoff or Because you read something that you believe something you read in and right and that is a weakness

of our reformed world.

And so that was huge for me.

It's experientially right then the the the theology of grace.

It just it was hugely important to me.

And so From that time on I was very conscious of being reformed now in those days.

It's not in the happy days like we have today.

You know, I know there are all sorts of hard things today but let me tell you this here's here's one way that it's super different my you know, Greenville County

had 346 Baptist churches and probably 11 Presbyterian churches, but

there was not there was not a Southern Baptist Calvinistic Congregation in

the county and in and and though maybe Calvinism might have been beat up here or there in a

passing comment Southern Baptists in the 1960s and 70s.

We're not paying attention to Calvinism because it just was not it was not it.

There was not even a blip on the radar screen.

So my my Baptist friends were by default Arminian, yeah, they were they were

they loved the Bible they cared about evangelism.

They cared about the church.

They cared about missions.

They were a little worried about me that I might be a liberal because I was Presbyterian and that was a pretty good guess in those days because

most of the Presbyterians that they knew would have been theologically liberal, but I you

know, I knew from the time 14 on I knew I'm Reformed and so part of what I did is tried to

make sure that I didn't that that didn't end up being the main thing that I argued About with my with my Baptist friends really

wise of you I wanted I wanted them to believe the Bible because one thing that was happening was that in

in many of their institutions.

The Bible was being undermined colleges the Baptist seminaries and.

So I wanted them to believe the Bible so that that if we're gonna get an argument, let's get an argument at the Bible.

Let's get an argument about Jesus.

Let's get an argument about the gospel.

And so that that was my mo because when I went off to college I was at what was

still then the State Baptist College of South Carolina Furman University and the the challenge there

was the religion department was Trying to talk impressionable young Southern Baptists into

rejecting the theology that they had heard preached by their own pastors.

And their own pastors may have been Arminian and I might have been a Calvinist.

But their home pastors did believe in the Bible they believed in Jesus and they believed in the gospel.

And so my I was a member of the Baptist Student Union there.

And and and my whole thing was don't reject the theology that your pastor is teaching you back home.

He believes in the Bible.

He believes in the gospel.

He believes in the deity of Christ.

So I had those kinds of relationships though.

I I knew I was soteriologically reformed.

And again there there wasn't there were there was a small reformed fellowship at Furman University, but not very

big.

Yeah, mostly was not Southern Baptist because you had the the Baptist Student Union had most of the

engaged Baptist kids there and and they weren't there was no

there was no Reformed resurgence going on right in those days.

It was in those days.

It was that I didn't realize it but that was sort of in the middle of the battle for the Bible in the in the

1970s Harold and Zell writes battle for the Bible and then eventually you get the Council on biblical inerrancy.

So Calvinism wasn't the thing it was it was the Bible and then basic Apostles Creed kind of

Christian doctrine.

Was was what I ended up talking with my friends about incredible.

I'm just taking a note because I don't want to forget to ask you about certain things that I'm thinking of as you're talking.

Okay, so I did something a little different for your interview.

I went on our room for nuance page and I said who here loves Ligon Duncan and everyone said we

do and then I said.

And then I said what are some questions that we absolutely cannot forget to ask so I'm gonna start there.

And then if there's time because Luke will kill me if I don't do this, we're gonna get to the regulative principle.

Super thoughts on the last five years in evangelicalism.

You're a historian.

Yeah, you see the way things shift and move over time.

Yeah, yeah,.

You know, I actually the way I group it timeline is really back to two thousand and twelve.

I think I think shy if you read shy lens timeline in his his book, I really think he captures it.

Well, I think we've been in a disorienting time in Evangelicalism and some of that has

been the political and cultural Polarization that we're living for images getting into the church.

Yeah.

And it has and so in some places the church has just been co -opted by their left or right.

Yeah.

And is a pawn in the in the hands of forces that don't care anything about Jesus don't care anything about

theology.

Don't care anything about the gospel.

Yeah, but they have an agenda.

It's a political agenda or a cultural agenda and the church is simply the handmaiden to that and that yes that

has driven Some of the polarization.

Yeah.

Are you hopeful?

Oh, I am because I mean you you look out at this conference.

You've got 11 ,000 young people that could be doing anything over their winter break.

Yeah, and they're here and and I when I talk to them that you know.

You think number one a missions conference really 11 ,000 18 to 25 year olds are gonna come to missions conference.

But when I talk to them they say and and they're involved in in organizations.

They're involved in crew and Intervarsity and campus outreach and all these other organizations out there.

And what they say is the content of this conference is More

substantial and better than any other place I go and and I'm thinking okay.

And when you're here because you want substance you want.

Yeah.

You know and that just makes me happy and the thing is I'm me I meet this all over the world because of my

job.

I'm on every continent about once every 18 months.

Yeah, and.

And it's this is there everywhere.

I go.

Yeah, and so I'm very hopeful about that.

I think I think 2024 is gonna bring us another season of discontent.

Yeah, and and polarization don't care Jesus is gonna win.

God's working a plan out.

They're a good guy as long as we can get people to really care about the Bible and really care about

Theology and really care about the Great Commission.

Yeah the other things will pale in comparison because when you think about the the

things that we have gone through that are a part of This polarization then you look back over the 200 years of this country.

There have been other times when far more catastrophic things have been divided.

Whatever.

Could you yeah, this is the most of.

Yeah, yeah, and and so I I think as long as we are

discipling a Generation in a deep commitment to the sole final authority

of Scripture.

Yeah to robust historic biblical Christian Theology to an

absolute commitment of the Great Commission.

Yeah, everything will work out I don't know how what the timetable of that will be but the

church needs to be discipled By the scriptures and by the church not by the world and we're

just struggling right now.

Yeah with people that are that are trying to play the hand of being we're the real Christians.

But actually importing a worldly outlook and wanting to disciple the church on the left and the right on

with that.

All right, and we just need that.

We're the Bible guys.

We're the theology guys.

We're the Great Commission guys.

Yes, and it'll you know, I don't know when when we'll get through this period but we will and

The the young people that come to RTS that come to Southern that come to Midwestern and I could go down a list

of wonderful Institutions where the Bible is believed in theology is sound.

They they know they're out of step with their culture.

Yeah, they know that and.

So they've already Taken a step to to being marginalized

and they're okay with that and.

And and that that's an old guy like me that's very encouraging because my my

contemporaries.

We were living in a time where there was at least outwardly evident church growth in our culture a

Lot of that was nominal a lot of that was superficial.

But because of that we we bought into worldly aspirations.

I'm going to be pastor of a big church I want to have a big salary.

I want to drive a big car live a big house and that sort of thing and You know, my

young people come come to seminary there.

They know that that's not their future their future might being a bivocational pastor.

Yeah, their future may be planning a church in a bombed -out.

You know department store, you know dying small town, you know, yeah, and they're up for that.

They just want to be faithful.

And that can't but encourage me when I see it.

I was talking with a mutual friend of ours recently and I was asking him about a An issue in

our cultural moment and he was like, yeah, I'm in India right now with five hundred pastors.

Who?

Have no idea what you're talking about.

But they're going out and risking their lives every day for the gospel.

And even as a historian you think back I mean Arianism, I mean several centuries of

darkness.

Will the deity of Christ prevail in the church?

So this little cultural flare -up in in light of history in light of what's happening all over the world.

There's it's not it's not a big reason to be discouraged and I you know.

I get it these kinds of cultural turns that we're living through and we're living it through a cultural turn.

What happens is Christians have historically Gone different directions and how

to navigate those cultural turns and I can show it to you it kind of every age and

stage and in every sort of Geographical area of the globe.

And you look at China I mean one one reason you have the three self churches and you have house churches is Christians

turn took a different turn and how do you deal with communism?

Yeah now I'm not commending one as as as equally good as the other but I'm

saying Christians when when they're faced with these kinds of totalizing influences

and demands from the culture.

They will tend to go a couple of different directions in how they try to navigate that and we're seeing that Right now and

you know the big thing in our culture.

It's gender marriage and sexuality.

That's that drives so many things in our culture right now whether you're gonna be accepted whether you can be

employed.

You know things of that nature.

Wow.

Speaking of gender and Family and stuff related to that.

Should we abandon the term complementarianism and start using the term patriarchy?

Yeah, I think complementarianism is a better term than patriarchy for the very reason that the term was

chosen in the first place.

I get that the term is a recent term and I think I think John Piper and Wayne Grudem and Mary Cassian

sat down One night at a at a at a hotel in in outside of Wheaton, Illinois and

came up with hey That's gonna be the term that we go with so I but what what they were trying to say

is there were already people that Were into patriarchy in the bad way that we see it out

there today.

There were already people like that around and they said they want to say no.

No, we don't want to use Patriarchy like that because we're not trying to baptize misogyny.

Mm -hmm and You know an abusive authoritarianism and all this kind of stuff.

We're we're trying to express what the Bible says about the way that men and women are to relate to one

another in Marriage and in the church.

Yeah, and and so I still think the term is a is a good term.

But the key is of course that we are teaching the truth from Scripture and it is going to be Uncomfortable to

teach that truth from Scripture.

No matter what terminology you use in this culture, it's sort of pick your poison.

Yeah, because people It does not matter how far you bend

over to be Helpful and bring people along.

It's like no good deed goes unpunished in in this area.

Yeah, and I you've probably seen the thing Kathy Keller tells the story in

in her in in one of her little books that they disciple this young woman along at

Redeemer Church in New York and Complementarianism is one of the things that they teach as part of the core

teaching of the church and This woman gets ready to join and she says now wait.

Do we have women as pastors and elders here?

And Kathy said well, no I mean we were convictionally we believe in in qualified men to

serve as Pastors and elders and the woman looks at her right in the eyes and said I feel like you just told me that my

father Was a child molester.

Wow.

You know, so it you know all of that careful slow.

Yeah.

Sweet discipleship bringing somebody along and and you're looked at like you are a monster.

And so it doesn't matter what you call it If if you believe what the Bible says they're gonna be some people in this

culture Utterly offended by that and I my personal view about that is that means that you should never put it on

the back burner.

You need to be up front with people.

Let me tell you the three things you're going to get fired in the interview.

Yeah, we do that in our church membership classes here.

The five distinctives were complementarian.

We're cessationist water, you know.

Yeah, because we don't want for you to join the church in a year later.

Be like what what.

Yeah.

Okay, since you brought up Kathy Keller, our brother, Tim Keller has gone to be with the Lord.

Man, what a loss.

Praise God for all the fruit that his ministry has borne.

You don't have to agree with him about everything to appreciate his ministry.

Colin Hansen's biography was superb very useful and understanding.

Why.

Tim did a lot of what he did the way he did it.

But you are one of the people who's had I think two debates with him on the floor of the General Assembly.

I've only I've only listened to one and it was several years ago, but can you speak at all to Tim's

life and legacy, especially as someone who has had to you know.

Go kind of not really go to the ground with him, but debate him about things that that you disagreed on, right?

You know, I'm a I'm a a late comer to Tim that we had occupied the same,

you know.

Tiny.

You know, we're our little corner of the Shire.

Yeah, you know the PCA is we're tiny compared to To the Southern Baptist world or the

larger evangelical world.

We had occupied the same territory, but Tim.

Tim's about 10 years older than me and It was that first debate on

women deacons and deaconesses that brought us together.

And I've always in like I would rather have a debate over things that I

deeply care about and disagree Upon with a friend rather than someone that I don't like.

Yeah, and so it was a real blessing to be able to have that conversation with Tim and.

But he kind of didn't debate you right?

He showed up and then he was like.

That's Tim's way, right?

That's Tim's way.

I mean Tim doesn't like to be polemical.

You know, that was just never he did Tim.

His his posture was always Apologetic and evangelistic.

He was always trying to make a case for the gospel.

He was trying to strip away objections to the gospel into Christianity and he was trying to reach

out and persuade and bring me as an Evangelist at his heart was yeah, and so he was

really uncomfortable in polemical settings.

Yeah, he had Strong opinions and well -founded opinions and I I actually enjoyed

arguing with him in private.

More than in public because he didn't you know when you're in public and you're a person of his stature.

Everybody is listening for every nuance of what you say and they'll have a read on whatever you say.

However, you say it when you're in private, you don't have to be careful that way.

And so, you know, I've been in a room with Al Mohler Mark Dever Tim Keller

and me and unbelievably candid Interactions.

Yeah, right and that was super enjoyable.

Yeah from a debate standpoint more enjoyable than being in a public setting.

But what was you know, just like the first time I met Vern Poythress at Westminster Seminary unbelievably

smart guy.

But you meet Vern and you immediately love him.

He just he loves Jesus.

He loves the Bible and you just love the man.

Well, I the same thing with Tim.

You just you meet Tim and you just you you talk to him for a little bit and you just I love this man.

Yeah, I love I love the way he loves Christ.

You know when when you learn his story and and I do think Colin really helped a lot of people come in.

Oh, oh.

That's that's where that comes from in Tim.

That's where that comes from in Tim.

That's where that comes from in Tim and I I knew a little of that because my wife went to Gordon Conwell a little bit After

him, but she had the same theological experience at Gordon Conwell that Tim and Kathy did and so I

got I used to tell people if you want to understand Tim you have to understand Gordon Conwell 1975, it's

just everything whether it's Loveless on dynamics of the spiritual life or whether you know,

I go down the list of the people and of course.

Especially Meredith Klein.

Yeah, they had a huge impact on Tim.

But I you know so it was really good to be put in that setting because I think people thought that we were gonna come out, you know with.

Yeah with guns blazing and and a fist of cuffs and all of that and we had a really

good enjoyable engagement that I think was clarifying and it ended up being unifying for the

denomination and and then We had several other public engagements like that.

But I tell you one of the great blessings has been the last seven years I've taught introduction to pastoral and

theological studies in New York City with Tim.

So next week, I will teach it without Tim for the first time in seven years.

So it's a really poignant thing for me and I'm actually be what this will surprise some people on this

call.

Whereas Tim started when we were teaching that course doing a lot of his cultural engagement stuff up front.

He realized after the first group of students that most of our students were

basically unfamiliar with reform soteriology.

So what.

Tim he put all these cultural engagement stuff aside and his one agenda in his lecture hours

was to convince them of reform soteriology.

Wow and and it and he also did a lot of stuff on call to the ministry that was

helpful, too, but There are a lot of people out there that I think would surprise that would

surprise them, you know.

He set aside contextualization.

Yeah, that's aside contextualization to go after Calvinism to make sure you understand grace.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's exactly right and so that was fun to be able to see him do that and to watch how he

did that and how he handled objections and that was one of the great privilege because I

would sit in on his classes and.

He was a master teacher he remembered everything that he had ever read.

I've had a few professors like that in my life.

Tim's got that same thing.

I had a professor in Edinburgh who remembered things that he had read 50 years ago.

He could tell you exactly where they were on the page.

Yeah, you get a paragraph quote.

Yeah, almost exactly, right?

That's how Tim is and so though Tim had never done a PhD.

He had that kind of mojo.

Yeah for an academic.

Just because of yeah because of his memory and because of his intelligence and.

And he was interested in everything.

He was always saying hey, have you read have you read have you read and he he was reading?

So widely he was reading stuff that I hadn't read.

Yeah, so he told you need to read this you need to read this and so that was fun and we we interacted a lot

text email phone calls.

Over the last four or five years of his life and and that was a special privilege and he you know.

He had admonitions for me along the way like when he when he knew things were going downhill.

With the cancer he said to me over a year ago.

He said Luke how old are you.

And I think at the time I was 61 or 62 and he said Don't think that you

have time and.

That was a really good and I'm not a person who takes For granted the time that the Lord has given

me, but that was a really good admonition to have from Tim.

So I got to be a little bit of a part of his life in that way that was that was a a

wonderful friendship and and and though I'm you know in the PCA if people would Associate me

with a more confessional wing of the of the PCA Tim and I had the most delightful

Working relationship and we're totally on the same page with what we were trying to do with our students in New York City.

Wow, praise God switching gears a little.

Classical theism.

That's the argument we're having these days.

Where do you land on that?

Yeah, I'm thankful for that.

I you know I in in the 1970s and 80s.

Because the the big thing was just the battle for the Bible.

So the doctrine of special revelation was a front -burner issue it was not

uncommon for evangelicals to question all kinds of historic commitments to the

Christian doctrine of God that Catholics Orthodox and Protestants would have all agreed upon up until the 19th

century.

Sure, but the 20th century you had people jettisoning the doctrine of divine simplicity divine

impassibility.

Immutability, I can go down the list of things that that relatively solid evangelicals had thrown out the

window and so the recovery of a robust historic

and biblical Christian doctrine of God.

Call it classical theism.

Well, yeah, it is a is a wonderful wonderful thing.

Yeah, and and and I you know, I've told Scott my President

at RTS Orlando has been a big part of that his he's a Trinitarian Theologian is written in that

Zondervan series Scott's Wayne introduction on the Trinity I told Scott,

you know Scott you you have made me go back and think about how I've said things in my doctrine of

God.

Course, yeah.

You know things that I've said for 30 years that I've wanted to try because of the insights that you have given to me

I've wanted to tighten up.

Yeah, what what I was doing?

I always had because I was confessional I was protected against some of the

Newfangled trends that were out there.

Like I know, you know the People that were jettisoning impassibility.

I never bought that because I knew I couldn't buy that that's not confessional it's not

a Historic Christian approach to God, but the work of these younger

guys and they're everywhere.

They're in the Baptist world.

They're in the Presbyterian world.

They're in the Anglican world conservative Bible believing guys recovering historic Christian doctrine,

especially in the doctrine of God.

They've really helped me.

Yeah, and and I think set us on a good course the reformers were pretty harsh on

scholasticism.

Some of the guys in this classical theism conversation are more friendly towards scholasticism.

Do you think that's just because of how kind of scarred wounded

The reformers were.

Because of the the way scholasticism had run amok.

You know you will you will find a mixed report in the

reformers on the scholastics.

And it depends on which scholastic you're talking about room.

So, you know Luther for sure Was completely fried with late medieval

nominalism and look I would have been to I'd have been over in the corner cheering go Luther go yeah.

So, you know the the late medieval Nominalists come in for a lot of pounding from both the Lutheran

and the Reformed that's still going on today.

But there there are also scholastic theologians who the

the the the reformers the first -generation reformers quoted with approbation and

and and so, you know Calvin was not trained in a classical

theological curriculum.

He was a humanist trained.

I mean his his dissertation was on Seneca's Thesis on clemency.

He had been prepared for law and then went in a different direction he he does

not in the way that a Petrus van Maastricht or a or a

Francis Turretin or someone like that Cite The scholastics and such but

you you can find in a pre you can find Calvin citing scholastic opinion in an approving way.

And then slapping around the school men in other areas.

You can find a little bit of that in just about all of the reformers.

So it was it was not a not necessarily a wholesale rejection of everything.

I remember RC Sproul I was doing this conference on the Westminster Confession

before PCA General Assembly's back in the 1990s early 2000s and I

invited RC to give a lecture on the Westminster Doctrine of God and he he got up and here his First

sentence was something like this There is nothing unique

about the doctrine of God in Magisterial

Reformed Protestantism in the 16th century in relation to Roman Catholicism and

Eastern Orthodoxy but the most unique thing about magisterial Protestantism in

the 16th century was its doctrine of God and That was such an RC way to start a lecture.

Yeah.

And then he went on to argue that what what the Reformers had done is That they had worked out the doctrine of

God in relation to all the other loci of theology.

Okay, so that the sovereignty of God permeated the totality of your theology.

Not just this little area of the doctrine of God in the Trinity.

And of course that especially applies to soteriology, you know and but it

also applied to things like ecclesiology and so in in an interesting way RC

kind of Anticipated what has happened in the last five ten years.

Yeah all these young guys.

Fascinating.

Yeah, one of the things that I did not know that I learned from Colin Hansen's biography of Keller was the connection of Keller.

And our RC.

Yes, what was the name of the place where they were?

The Ligonier

Brother.

This is not meant to be like a clickbaity kind of move for the views question but so just

know what's coming I Genuinely want to know because I when I think what do I want the young

men in my church.

To be like what are we discipling them towards.

And I'm not flattering you.

That's a sin I think love Ligon Duncan doesn't move an inch on the gospel right.

Doesn't move an inch on cultural things.

Now I know some people have disagreed with certain decisions.

You've made that's true of all of us sure, but also Incredibly gracious incredibly Catholic,

even in this interview.

The way you've spoken about brothers and sisters with whom you have minor to significant disagreements with.

I'm like that's what I want for our guys and our gals.

Thoughts on the Moscow mood conversation.

Yeah.

Yeah, I really loaded that I think Kevin did a Service to us writing on that.

I think Kevin realized that he was going to take a lot of incoming on that.

He told me probably a month or two before he was ready to release that that he will.

He brought it up at ETS.

And gave me sort of an early Draft of it.

I think it's a good warning to send right now.

I think there are there are some people in our culture today.

Who are saying that here?

This is the model of faithfulness lob grenades and.

And and I think I think it's really good for guys like Kevin who himself Kevin's got back.

Kevin is willing right to speak into things that he knows are gonna get people upset.

I'm down for the fight.

He's down for it.

But that doesn't mean that you are the most faithful when you are lobbing the most

grenades.

Indiscriminately in every direction and when you are doing clickbaity stuff on you know it's one thing to

to LARP.

Faithfulness and courage on social media.

It's another thing to do it in real life and.

And and I think you've got a lot of live -action role -playing going on in the social media world from guys.

Acting like they're tough that put them in a room, and you'd have them in a fetal position in three seconds.

That's right, and and that's it's not good for that voice to influence our young

folks.

We are gonna have to cultivate backbone, but we're also going to have to cultivate

a love for the world.

It hates us at Bill Davis who teaches it at Covenant College says that the most common

student a question that he gets from his philosophy students is Dr.. Davis teach me how to love a world that

hates me.

And that you know I said I want them.

I don't want them to get any of their signals from the world.

I want them to get all their signals from the Bible.

I want them to faith be faithful to the whole panoply of Christian doctrine.

But I want them thinking how can I reach out to this lost world?

How can I love people that hate me not.

How can I make them hate me more?

How can I demoralize and demean them with every word that I say how can I drive them away from the

gospel for the sake?

Of branding and building my own and even wound my brothers and sisters around the way correct.

Yeah, and so I think that's I really appreciate Kevin being willing to wade into that.

And I think underneath that is it's it's not only a mood there there's a there's a

theological view of the church of the gospel of Fidelity and

there are problems at each of those levels underneath that I'm about to ask you about Big Eva.

But because you are one of the patriarchs of it I don't expect an honest answer from you, but let's

just let's just play this game.

Okay.

Setting a low bar for me.

I I Mean.

What do you think when people talk about this shadowy syndicate this big machine of Big Eva?

Most of the conversation that I hear about Big Eva is complete nonsense.

And it is funny some of the some of the biggest critics of Big Eva if there is a Big Eva there it

you know I Could name organizations far larger and more

extensive than the gospel coalition for instance.

Yeah, but boy do they hate the gospel that hate the gospel coalition and and they've got more money.

They've got more reach.

They've got more you know all in and and and they'll jump in on the Big Eva conversation.

So a lot of it is just nonsense and I pay no attention to it whatsoever now.

You know have have there have had people been Disappointed by

leaders unwilling to take stands on important things.

Sure I'm sure that's happened.

You know welcome to the fallen world and I Want us to be people

of principle and sometimes that means calling out people that we love and care about but you can you can?

Do that in such a way?

That is not we have a culture in in a in a part of evangelical right evangelicalism

right now that is Desensitized to its own spirit of mocking and slander

and that's that kind of goes back to the Moscow mood thing again.

Mocking and slander is not a Christian way of dealing with anything and so you know

many of those mockers and Slanders, I have no reason to even think they're Christians.

Can I pause you out there well?

Because I know somebody from that world will hear you say that and go.

This guy doesn't know his Bible.

What about the prophets?

What about Jesus.

Look at the way Paul talks?

How would you respond to that well?

I mean what one thing is.

Jesus was neither a mocker and or a slanderer.

Oh, okay, so when When and and if you by the way if if if

some of these folks had been around They would have been going yay John the Baptist Jesus.

You're a weasel John is preaching truth to power.

Why don't you come out and say why don't you go up to and say Herod you Fox?

You know why don't you be like John?

And I think one of the things the Bible teaches you is there different ways to be faithful.

You know if if some of these people had been around they would have been on Daniel like white on rice.

You're a sellout.

You you work for the wickedest King in the world you are Facilitating

his wickedness and his ungodly rule.

Yeah Daniel is a high -ranking official in a pagan Empire with extensive

influence in how the the Empire Works.

So in the Bible you find believers in very different Circumstances dealing

differently now, you know is is Daniel willing to go to the lion's den rather than stop praying

to his God.

Yeah, but he's still working for the government.

You know and there's some people that call you out today.

Yeah for for that so I Think that it let's actually look at the

Bible and how the Bible teaches Christians to deal with culture.

III Invented a course for RTS called Christ culture and

contextualization.

It's a systematic theology course because I saw so many students going out and thinking about

contextualization for the first time in their lives not in the context of Theological education

but on on the field and doing a really bad job of thinking about contextualization.

So I'm giving away the store in compromise some of them come up with bad ideas.

So I wanted students to think about contextualization under the watchful eye of a systematic theologian.

Well and read the best stuff on that because Mac Stiles years ago convinced me That a lot of

what has happened on the mission field in evangelicalism is driven by a bad ecclesiology of the local church and

bad a bad contextualization and so I Had to teach that

course for the first time this year.

I'd Forced it on my entire curriculum.

And so one of the things I did is I said, I wonder What key passages

I ought to go to?

To to look at these things and you know that the you know, obviously Genesis 1 and 2 is a place that

you're gonna go.

Obviously Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount is a place salt and light that you're gonna go.

But what I was struck by is how much instruction there is not just in the minor prophets.

Not just in Genesis.

Not just in Jesus teaching the Sermon on the Mount, but all throughout the New Testament exactly telling

Christians how to go about engaging with the culture around them like the the Titus

2 and 3 it's got all kinds of stuff about how you're supposed to engage

with your culture.

What attitude you're supposed to have?

Towards the lost people around you and and brothers and sisters and neighbors and all of our teachers correct.

Gentleness exactly and so I just started working through those those passages with with

students and What that's what we need to disciple.

We need to disciple people with the biblical way of engagement and it's not always the same way you need.

Sometimes you need a good cop and sometimes you need a bad cop.

And in some cases John the Baptist was the bad bad cop and Jesus was not the bad cop.

Now there are certainly things that Jesus said that were very in -your -face and very Direct and they were

often Directed towards religious leaders who ought to have known better.

Yeah.

But when you decide to do that You have to be very confident of your spiritual

maturity.

Yeah, and I see a lot of Incredibly spiritually immature people like people that I would not

allow to disciple my cat.

Trying to do that.

Okay, and and so, you know people I want to go that like do you know yourself at all?

I mean, do you have any self -awareness whatsoever?

You know what you're like, you know.

It would anybody in the world go to you, you know.

And and want to understand the gospel in Christianity and but you're gonna be the arbiter of who's faithful and who's not

faithful and so social media has encouraged us in that direction because anybody with a

Cellphone can opine to the entire known universe and and and so

when you know I really by the way, I think that Neil Postman's book amusing ourselves to death

Fantastic explains all of this now.

The illustrations are out of dating.

You'll laugh at him, etc but he explains this whole dynamic 40 years ago and

When your Vision for faithfulness in engagement is a food fight, you know,

whether it's on television or whether it's on Twitter or X.

Then you're gonna have a very different view of what it means to be faithful in relation to your culture and a lot of it is

just feeding ego and a lot of its envy and.

And again a lot of it is is driven by a desire to be important.

Yeah, you know very unimportant people who want to be important.

Hmm.

Brother you have a heart out at 740.

Let me ask you this.

You will not hurt my feelings.

I wanted to get your thoughts on theonomy.

I doubt you can answer that in one minute.

Do you have another minute to answer that or should we just let's go?

I'm yours.

You will not hurt my feelings if you say I just gotta go, you know, I wrote on theonomy As a

young professor at RTS in the early 1990s, you know, Greg Bonson wrote Theonomy and Christian

ethics while he was a professor at RTS Jackson in the mid -1970s.

Oh, theonomy was a ground zero kind of issue when I came to RTS Jackson.

And so I had to develop a lecture for it in my ethics course and that eventually became

a book.

Which I finished in 1995 or 1996 but by that time theonomy was

already in retreat in Yeah circles.

Yeah and so I put it on the shelf and I thought this will never be relevant again for the rest of my life and

then Behold, you know from for the last seven years or so, you know

I see the zombie coming out of the of the great force and so I've.

Actually Jonathan Lehman reached out and asked if we could republish some of that material in the nine marks for the journal

magazine on Reconstructionism.

I said absolutely and I've realized I need to address that again.

So I would say that Theonomy and the the

larger reconstruction movement around it Was a well -meaning

but misguided cultural Overreaction to

Some some theological things in American culture and to some and to some cultural and political things in American

culture.

I think that if you look at the time when theonomy is developing Rushduni

North Bonson, the you know, the original folks that sort of spread the word the

dominant theology of Evangelicalism in those days was dispensational

antinomianism.

And so.

It's it's almost like okay.

We're gonna do the opposite and the end and a lot of neutral public square talk.

Yeah.

Yeah, and and and and and then at the same time there was a there was a

right there was a gradual rise of the of the sort of conservative movement in

America through you know from before Reagan through Reagan the moral majority and then the moral majority.

And and a lot of these folks ended up being advisors to some, you know fairly significant public

figures and and politicians and I think there was a there there was a

very optimistic post -millennial Expectation that we're gonna not only take

back this country.

We're actually going to establish, you know Thea, you know theonomic.

Yeah, we're really doing it.

Yeah, we're gonna do it.

The Puritans will be proud.

There you go.

And and so.

That I think that was the background.

I think what's happening now.

We've never been further away from that possibility in our culture than we are now and

Just like the abortion abolition movement, you know, Roe v. Wade gets struck down and suddenly there's an abortion abolition

movement.

You know, like where were you like for the last 50 years while all these evangelical pro -life

people were out here, you know.

Scraping and clawing and trying to do what they could do to to roll back Roe v. Wade.

Same thing with with reconstructionism you you know.

Just like you were saying friends from other countries look at this like it like talk to your Chinese friends.

How impractical is this?

Yeah, it's utterly impractical in in in most parts of the world even think in

these ways and so.

Again you can be really brave and you can have these really strong opinions and you can you can think you're really pure

and you're you're the you're the one true believer and everyone's midst and

it's it's there's no possibility of this being implemented in any possible world,

yeah, and.

So that's one thing that's going on theologically.

Theonomic Reconstructionism is not a reformed view.

That's just you will just not that they will they will go back and try and cite Magisterial reformers and then we'll cite

them incorrectly.

It is true that there was a shift in the 16th and 17th century Reformation

in its views of church -state relations and its views of how

the Ten Commandments were to be applied in society and It is

true that there was a shift from Britain to America in the Reformed community.

So Baptists and Presbyterians were being thrown in jail in the American colonies by Anglicans and by

Congregationalists and Baptists and Presbyterians thought you know.

It's really not a good idea for Massachusetts Bay Colony to be a congregationalist Establishment

thing where we get thrown into prison or Virginia to be an Anglican colony where we get thrown into prison.

We actually believe in Freedom of the exercise of religion.

Yeah, and and that's a good thing.

Not a bad thing.

It's not infidelity and pluralism.

It's a good thing.

Yeah the gospel because you don't want people.

Having their consciences forced.

Yeah in the most important area of all of life and you've got all of the history

of the religious wars behind that and so there's a real sense in which Protestants

invented religious freedom and in America Baptists and Presbyterians really forged the

consensus that came About on religious freedom and now you've got a group, you know sort of wanting to call

that into question.

Let's go back to monarchy.

Let's go back to you know to state sponsored persecution, etc, etc.

That's the way to be really faithful and it's it's very childish to me.

It also feels it feels like a visceral response America this thing that we've loved for

so long that we felt in control of we're losing that.

We're terrified and listen, I get it.

I don't want drag queen story hour any more than you do.

But as good Bible guys were the reform guys.

We can't just say let's take America back that feels carnal.

It's almost like theonomy allows us to baptize that instinct.

Well now I'm trying to find theological rationale for this impulse, you know.

So I can actually say no me fighting to save the country is a biblical thing.

Brother, we could talk so much more you have to go.

I'm so thankful honored Humbled that you would take the time to do this.

Let me pray and ask the Lord to bless him.

Lord, thank you for our brother leg.

Thank you for the example.

He is to us.

We pray that Many especially young men in the church will follow his example a

robust gospel backbone.

But full of all the fruit of the Spirit peace patience kindness goodness gentleness self and

self -control.

Lord, we pray that.

Yeah that that his ministry would continue to flourish that RTS would continue to train

robust Zealous joyful ministers for the gospel we pray

that.

That his time here at cross will be fruitful that every interaction that he has will bear some fruit in

eternity.

We pray that you'll bless this episode Lord.

You delight to use the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and and to use small things to

create big fruit.

So we pray that you will do that in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Record my immovable conviction That this is the noblest

service in which any human being can spend or be spent

and that If God gave me back my life to be lived over again.

I would without one quiver of hesitation Lay it on the

altar to Christ that he might use it as before in similar ministries of

love especially amongst those who have never yet heard the name of.

Jesus

what I'm doing right now is.

Appointed in the Bible to have its unique place.

It's one thing.

It's called preaching.

Do we have a God who wants to be understood.

Who is God enough to?

Communicate in a way so that humans can know him love him worship him

and be saved by him.

Can it really be true that a faithful believer can experience all of these things and the answer to

that question from the scripture?

Very clearly is yes.

Why do we come to church?

Why do we hear the word?

Why do we read the scriptures?

We are looking for God.

All the words of scripture actually what they're meant to be.

We're not a point in time where people question where the scripture is clear.

And we are most accountable for is our handling of the Word of God.

We are called to faithfully preach the word.

At ten of those we want to serve the local church by equipping your church family with

great resources That are going to point them to Jesus.

So we'll come and set up a pop -up bookstore in your church.

There's no charge.

We'll come for your Sunday services.

Maybe you've got a weekend retreat or a conference.

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This is one.

I've read three times now.

It's called incomparable by Andrew Wilson and he goes through 60

Characteristics of God it just wonderfully takes our eyes off of the world off

ourselves puts them on our Savior.

Now, we've got lots of things for families and And kids for parents I want to recommend this series.

This one is raising kids in a screen saturated world.

Our passion is to get good books that holds the Bible read by as many people as possible.

We handpick our bookstore.

It's curated.

So we know everything we sell will point to the Lord Jesus.

Everything's discounted and as we make recommendations We're seeking to serve your church family

so that they may be Excited and equipped to read good books and as they do we'll be

praying that it might just change their life.